Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi:

 

I`m a new member.  My site has been up and running for a year and a half.  During that time, it has experienced steady growth with very little paid advertising. I get an average of 50 uniques per day with monthly sales of $1,000.  I`ve tried several small ad campaigns through Google Ad Words and others but didn`t see any significant results.  I also tried an Ebay store but found that, for low priced items such as our dog tees at only $3.99,  the fees ate up all the profit.

 

Please take a cruise through my site and offer any suggestions as to what I can do to increase profits.  http://blankdogtees.com/

 

Does the site need to be redesigned?  Would it make a significant difference since it`s such a targeted product with a product specific domain name?

 

Does affiliate marketing on the site help or hurt?

 

Should I offer ad space on my site?

 

Thanks for your input.

 

Barb Steiner

BlankDogTees.com

 

 

 

As small dog owners, my wife and I do check out dog apparel from time to time, usually sweaters, but Taz does own a couple of tees.

 

Your home page is ok but the internet is a visual medium so placing the photo more in plain view so the viewer does not have to scroll down to see it would be better. What is the purpose of your home page? If it`s a landing page for targeted search terms - ok... but if not, your "real" home page is your products page. I imaging your could include some of the content of the home page on the products page.

 

You do have meta keywords on your home page (but not other pages) HTML, although meta keywords are not super effective. But, your title tag (a very important tag) is the same for most of your other pages. The title should be different for each page and be related to the page`s content and ideally include some targeted keywords.

 

Also, missing from your pages (other than Home page) is a "description" meta tag. This is also an important tag and should be unique for each page.

 

I`d also suggest adding an alt image tag to all your images including your header image. This is critical for your menu at the top. Because the menu is all graphics, it is not "read" by search engines. To help that add alt image tags for each menu item.  It would be better to have a text based CSS menu, but the alt image tags will help.

 

~Roland

Steve and Roland:

Thanks for your comments.  I`ll have to look into how to put meta tags on the pages.  I built the site myself using software from PageBuzz.  I think it automatically creates meta tags but there must be some way to edit them. What is the best way to identify the keywords I should be using?  What is important about the "description" meta tag?  How is it different than the other meta tag? The webpage stats show the search terms people have used to find the site.  Should I use these in the meta tag or, since they found the site without using them in the meta tags,  should I use completely new keywords I`m not currently using?

 

Thanks again!

Roland:

 

I just saw the picture of Taz!  He`s a real cutie!  You should send me a pic of him in a tee shirt so I can post it on my Model For Us page!

 

Barb

I agree, I would put product photos instead of the anamation.

I had to scroll down before I could figure it out.

Also. I was amazed by the low cost of the items. Is this caused by the

competition?

Maybe you can add some more expensive items.

 

 

Colchester:

 

Yes, I try to keep my prices the lowest on the internet for high quality, 100% cotton dog tees.

So far, my customers seem pleased with that!  I just want to get the word out to everyone!

 

I did carry some more expensive items but they weren`t that popular.  You can see them under the Clearance Section, marked down and still not moving.

 

Thanks for your advice.

 

Barb Steiner

BlankDogTees.com